Grimes baseball wins sectional C-2 title

Cobras conquer Weedsport, Beaver River in last two rounds

The Bishop Grimes baseball team celebrates its Section III Class C-2 championship, earned last Wednesday at Rome’s DeLutis Field when the Cobras shut out defending champion Beaver River 9-0, a day after it beat Weedsport 3-1 in the semifinals at NBT Bank Stadium.

With an emphatic effort, both from pitching ace Chris Schad and a lineup that just kept on hitting, the no. 2 seed Cobras blanked top seed and defending champion Beaver River 9-0 in Wednesday night’s Class C-2 final at Rome’s DeLutis Field.

It started at NBT Bank Stadium last Tuesday night in the C-2 semifinals, where Grimes needed a tremendous pitching effort from Tom Steinberg and some late-game heroics at the plate to fight off no. 6 seed Weedsport 3-1.

They had split two regular-season meetings, the Cobras winning big, 16-4 on April 25, but the Warriors getting even in the rematch 2-0 on May 17.

Thus, Weedsport didn’t get rattled when Grimes took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Schad doubled and raced home on Wyatt Myers’ single. Over the next four innings, Warriors pitcher Shaun Ferguson kept the Cobras quiet, retiring 10 in a row at one point.

Steinberg, for his part, blanked the Warriors until the fourth, when a single and Alex Okal’s triple tied it, 1-1. But after that, Steinberg struck out the side and went 1-2-3 in the fifth and sixth innings, waiting for some offensive help.

In the fifth, Trevor Pokines’ two-out triple gave the Cobras a chance to reclaim the lead, but he was stranded. But in the sixth, Ferguson hit Schad, and with Vince Commisso on to run for Schad, Myers struck again with a triple to the wall that scored Commisso, and would trot home on Chris Hendrick’s sacrifice fly.

With that two-run cushion, Steinberg gave up a leadoff walk in the top of the seventh before recording his 10th and 11th strikeouts and inducing a liner back to the mound to end a complete-game effort where he held Weedsport to three hits.